Co-operative Bank's charity programme wins marketing award
Howard Lake | 23 June 2008 | News
The Co-operative Bank’s charity and campaigning scheme ‘Customers Who Care’ has won an award at the Marketing Society’s Awards for Excellence.
Customers Who Care won first place in the Cause
Related Marketing category for its two-year Combating Climate Change campaign, in partnership with Friends of the Earth. The awards recognise inspiring marketing best practice and the contribution made to the success of business.
The campaign called on the Government to introduce more ambitious targets in the Climate Change Bill to reduce the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions. It saw more than 22,000 customers write a letter or e-mail to their MP and resulted in every single MP being lobbied by a Co-operative Bank customer.
The campaign included a month-long national advertising campaign in both press and online media, supported by communications with Bank customers and staff, and in-branch marketing.
Melanie Phillips, Campaigns Manager at The Co-operative Bank, said: “The Customers Who Care scheme is important because it gives our customers a say on issues they feel strongly about and provides a voice to help bring about positive change”.
The Co-operative Bank’s Customers Who Care initiative was launched in 1994, and has successfully campaigned on a wide range of issues relating to the Bank’s Ethical Policy, from a ban on land mines, to safer chemicals and
trade justice.
For every £100 spent by customers on Co-operative Bank credit and debit cards, 1.25p is donated to the Customers Who Care campaign fund. Through the scheme the Bank has donated more than £4 million to over 80 charities and organisations.
The Bank’s latest Customers Who Care campaign marks the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and it is working in partnership with Amnesty International to raise awareness and call for action on human
rights issues.
Pampers and UNICEF were the runners-up in the CSR category of the awards. The Give a Few Bob campaign by Give a few Bob by the Prostate Cancer Research Foundation won the not-for-profit category award.
www.co-operativebank.co.uk/cwc
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.